There is an interest in employing cash alternatives in a variety of environments. Such cash alternatives can include, for example, payment devices such as payment cards and the like. In some cases, it may be difficult to employ such cash alternatives where transaction processing times are too long, for example, due to slow terminal decisioning. One non-limiting example of a situation where transaction times might need to be short is the case of high volume environments (for example, access to transit systems). Such high volume environments might also tend to involve relatively low-value transactions. The use of offline techniques such as that described by the EMV specifications for chip-based payment transactions (discussed below) show how to conduct offline transactions efficiently and quickly, but not all transactions can be handled offline and not 100% of the time as card risk management will periodically require communication with the issuer.
In addition, there is an interest in employing payment cards or other payment devices for complex transactions, where the final transaction amount may not be known upon initial presentation of the payment card or other payment device. Non-limiting examples of this include transit fares where the fare depends on the entrance and exit locations, or upon a discount requiring some type of calculation. Another non-limiting example is health insurance or the like where the patient-responsible amount is not known when the patient initially presents his or her card or device, but is only determined at a later time, after adjudication by an insurance carrier or the like.